


Parallel

by SelphishKay



Category: Bones (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-05
Updated: 2016-03-08
Packaged: 2018-05-24 23:28:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6170989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SelphishKay/pseuds/SelphishKay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Forty-eight hours after Booth reneges on their engagement, Brennan collects Christine and disappears on a plane. Agent Seeley Booth is abandoned, to explore what his life would mean without Bones and to pickup what pieces remain. Dr. Lance Sweets is the most confusing, forbidden, wanted piece of the agent's life left behind. (Remains true to Seasons 8 and 9.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Tear in the Heart

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Perpendicular](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/179377) by KShir (Alternate pen name of SelphishKay). 



> Hello, and thank you for reading! Two things I wanted to note before you got into this little chunk of writing. First: yes, I am the same author who originally started this story as "Perpendicular" on various fan fiction sites. I was writing Perpendicular as Season 8 ended and before Season 9 began. Two things made me stop. One, as I was writing the sordid affair that was Sweets and Booth, I began to lose their mannerisms and the characters themselves. It was just becoming a story about two guys having secret sex – there was no goofy, young Sweets, or torn, aggressive Booth – just two nameless faceless dudes going at it. Two, Season 9 came out and rendered my plans for the story useless. In this vein, some situations may translate over (like the airport scene) but rest assured, if I didn't think it fit, I nixed it.
> 
> Second note of interest: This time, the story lands 48 hours after Booth says he doesn't think that marrying Brennan is a good idea. As there was a 3 month timeskip between Seasons 8 and 9, I intend for this story to cover those three months, and the first five episodes of Season 9, terminating with the wedding. I will be making references to episodes of previous seasons, and trying my best to help you suspend reality with creative use of existing dialogue. (In layman's terms, I'm going to make this seem as canon as possible.)
> 
> Thank you kindly for reading this, and please, I always welcome constructive feedback.

_Chapter One: The Tear in the Heart_

It was difficult to see him like this; Booth was pacing back and forth between the currency exchange kiosk and the tiled walls leading to the restrooms. Lance slid down a fraction in the leather chair and steepled his fingers underneath his chin as his brown eyes tracked the agent's frenzied, repetitive strides across the main artery of the airport. The older man's own eyes darted up to every face that passed him, searching desperately for the high cheek bones and square, feminine jawline that was his love – Dr. Temperance Brennan.

Lance Sweets sighed heavily and glanced at his watch. The silver, analog hands told him that it was 3:27 PM – and it was very nearly time for the good doctor to show her beautiful, forlorn face.

/

_Seven in the morning… on a Saturday. Wasn't that too early for his phone to be ringing? Lance reached a hand, clumsy with grogginess, out to silence the thing before it woke his two roommates. Whatever it was, it could wait for another hour or two. The sun wasn't even fully over the horizon – his bedroom was still dully lit with an orange glow._

_As the psychologist's hand reached the device, the ringing ceased. Lance groaned in irritation and dropped his arm, rolling away from the nightstand. As he settled back into the warm divot he had just vacated, the instrumental version of "Lime in the Coconut" chirped through the morning air again._

" _Sweets," he barked sharply into the receiver when he managed to snatch his phone from his bedside table._

" _Sweets." It was Booth and some underlying current of panic had Lance's eyes open and free of drowsiness in a moment._

" _Booth, what is it?"_

" _Sweets, she's gone. Bones took Christine and she's gone."_

_/_

Sweets had met up with Booth and helped him to tear the city apart searching for the mother of his child. The Founding Fathers was empty, the diner was full of bemused patrons who stared up at a sweaty Agent Booth. Calls to Max and to Brennan went unanswered. She had not shown up at the laboratory on a Saturday.

As their large, black SUV sped through Washington DC, lights flashing in a mirror of Booth's sense of emergency, the story had unraveled. Two nights ago, Booth had sat his would-be fiancé down and declined her marriage proposal. Over 48 hours, tensions had climbed in the house until Booth stumbled home in the wee hours of Saturday morning to find Brennan's luggage removed from the closet, her drawers emptied, and Christine's crib bare.

As Sweets had been about to ask what had led Booth to renege on his agreeing to marry her, Booth's phone rang on the dashboard and the anthropologist's familiar voice filled the FBI-issued vehicle.

"Booth," she had said, her affect flattened, but before she could continue, Booth had interrupted.

"Bones, thank god! Where are you? Are you okay? Where's Christine? Are you-"

"We're fine, Booth. We're at the airport."

"Why are you-"

"We promised Christine we were going to go to Tho Chau; it is important to develop appropriate cause and effect recognition early in life. I am taking her on our vacation." There was a beat as what Dr. Brennan said rang in the early afternoon air.

"I am going through security now, I have to go." There was a small, computerized _click_ and the vehicle was silent. Booth's wide, somber eyes turned to Sweets for only a moment before he swung the SUV in a large arc and headed in the direction of the airport.

And thus, here they were. There was one flight to Thailand from Dulles International, and boarding was to begin at 3:30 PM. In a less dire situation, Lance might have laughed at Booth's threats and badge flashing that got them to the air-side of the terminal, but there was no room for humor here. Booth was easily the psychologist's closest friend, and Sweets felt a flicker of the agent's panic rolling in his own belly.

"Bones!"

Sweets looked up quickly to see Dr. Temperance Brennan striding briskly towards the burly FBI agent, one hand dragging a hard luggage case and the other pushing Christine in a stroller with "DULLES" stamped across the back in large, white letters. The young doctor sat up a little straighter in the uncomfortable airport seating and leaned forward – the better to hear a frenzied, low conversation between the anthropologist and the agent.

"Bones, please. You can't just take Christine and leave," Booth said earnestly.

"Actually, Booth, you'll find that I can." Her tone was clipped and cold; though Booth most likely could not think around the hurt haze in his head, Lance recognized Brennan's defense mechanism in her emotional distance. "Legally, I retain all rights to Christine."

"Temperance," Seeley groaned painfully. "Don't talk like that. She's _our_ daughter. This is us we're talking about here."

"Booth, my flight is boarding," Brennan said, glancing away from his pained face. "We have to go." She made a half-hearted attempt to push the stroller around him, but Booth side-stepped her effort.

"Bones." Booth had run out of steam, out of words – out of options. "Please."

"We're leaving, Booth."

"I just… Fine. But how long? When are you coming back?" The agent knelt and scooped his daughter from the stroller, clutching her to his broad chest. He cradled her blonde curls with a large, calloused hand and kissed the top of her head. She smiled a toddler's grin at him and her pudgy fingers traced the black tattoos visible on his wrists.

"I don't know. A week. Maybe two."

"But not forever?"

Lance winced – Booth's pain was palpable, his anxiety tangible. From nearly sixty feet away, Sweets felt his friend's agony roll over him like waves in a storm. He wanted nothing more than to go to him, to offer him a hand or a shoulder or even a punch. Sweets couldn't count the amount of times he said he would be there for the agent in a time of need and it killed him to sit here and watch him struggle - though it wasn't the first time.

/

_Sweets slid out of the black, FBI-issued SUV and the moment his shoes hit the gravel, he was moving in Agent Booth's direction. The broad-shouldered older man was briefing another agent, the silver-haired Hayes Flynn, through the use of various pages spread out over the hood of yet another one of the innumerous black SUVs. Sweets walked up on his right side._

" _What are you doing here?" Booth said, glancing up at the psychologist._

" _I want to go in with you." There was no point in beating around the metaphorical bush. To watch this man enter that Serberus building and knowing that it might be the last time he ever saw him- it was a thought that Lance Sweets could not form fully without tremendous pain._

" _No." And like that, Booth had ripped through his half-formed plan with a single word. Sweets clenched his hands, willing himself to be calm. He cast around for any words that might slow Booth's momentum, anything that would keep his best friend, one of the only people left alive that the psychologist loved, from entering the structure where certain death awaited him._

_But Booth didn't care about pain or death… he only cared about finding Pelant. Sweets seized on that._

" _I can help you in there, I understand Pelant."_

_Armored FBI agents circled around them in a frenzied excitement, but for the moment, Sweets thoughts were preoccupied with the idea that Booth was actually considering taking him into the building._

" _You're staying outside." Booth raised a hand, punctuating the negation firmly. Sweets shook his head in exasperation. He couldn't let him go in there alone._

" _That doesn't make any sense."_

" _It makes complete sense," Booth said, his coffee brown eyes locking with Sweets' own chocolate irises. Lance felt himself suddenly and thoroughly rooted to the earth where he stood as his heart beat a tattoo against his ribcage and his teeth clenched together painfully._

" _Because if I go in there and I don't make it out, you're the only one that understands Pelant – how he ticks. You're going to have to be the one who follows through with all of this." Booth gestured at Flynn and the map on the hood of SUV and for a long moment, Sweets thought that Booth's only concern was taking down Pelant, as opposed to his own life or the life of the psychologist himself._

" _I need to know you'll be there for me if that happens." The was a long, pregnant pause and Sweets, not for the first time since he had known Booth, wondered if there was more meaning tied into his words than the agent knew he was letting on. While Sweets understood that his entire life would be dashed upon rocks if Booth were to enter the building and not exit it, he knew that his one truest goal was to fill Booth's needs. He would be where- and whatever the older man needed._

_Sweets looks Hayes up and down, considering for a moment the odds that neither Booth nor Flynn would escape the Serberus building alive, and thus considering admitting to Booth every complex feeling that had plagued him since they first me - before he lost his life in the fight against Pelant. He needed to let the agent know that no matter who survived today and who didn't, Sweets would always,_ always…

_However_ , a _cknowledging that Flynn's survival after a confession like that could mean losing the cover Sweets had spent the last six years developing in relation to his thoughts about and feelings for Booth, Sweets fought to keep emotions in check, and turned back to Seeley, face as serious as he had ever been able to compose it._

" _Okay." He said heavily with a sigh. "Okay, I'll be here." And he would. He would stay outside the building and pursue Booth's next steps until Booth could make the motion forward himself… assuming that he ever could. Sweets would always allow Booth to make steps forward in his life – even if it meant the psychologist had to stand still._

_/_

"No. Of course not forever," Temperance acknowledged, sighing, and pulling Sweets from his reverie. "That would be an impossible guarantee."

"Okay," Booth said, sounding as though he would take whatever inch Brennan would give.

"But we really do have to go now," the anthropologist insisted, collecting the young child from Booth's arms and quickly stowing her in the stroller. She turned her shoulder to him and made to move in the direction of her gate but he stumbled out in front of the borrowed black buggy.

"Bones," Booth interrupted earnestly, reaching a hand out to clutch her upper arm. He glanced around him surreptitiously, eyeing the large cameras hanging from the ceiling, and the people walking by on their cellphones. Sweets wondered for a moment what Booth needed to say that he didn't want anyone to overhear.

"I love you. You know that, right?"

"Goodbye, Booth."

"Be safe!" He called after them.

The broad-shouldered agent seemed to deflate as Brennan's form disappeared into a swarm of people jostling each other in their quests for each gate. Sweets stood and took a tentative step towards the older man. Booth was not walking, was not turning to acknowledge the psychologist; he was staring in the direction that Brennan had vanished in, looking as lost as Sweets had ever seen the ex-sniper.

"I-" Sweets started, but no words came to him. Seeley Booth simply stood in silence, hands at his sides. "I don't know what to say, Booth." The agent didn't even look in his direction.

Lance's mind, whenever he came to a turning point in a conversation or a relationship, divvied up the odds and chances of different outcomes into various scenarios. Here, the psychologist only recognized three possible results.

In the first, Sweets ignored his gut, ignored the implications and wrapped his arms around the agent. He buried his face in Booth's broad chest and held him until Seeley either broke the embrace to punch him or to return it. And if he returned it…

No, no. Sweets halted that image in its tracks. He need not lose his head and he knew that no matter the circumstance, he'd never willingly admit his feelings in such a public way.

In the second concocted picture, he left Booth where he was as long as Booth needed to stand there. How did you guide your best friend away from the place where his one true love abandoned him? He considered this strongly; psychological evidence suggested that allowing a mind to move forward in grief at its own pace prevented regression.

_I will always let him move forward, even if I must stand still._

And so Sweets went with option three.

"Bourbon?" He asked, shoving his long-fingered hands deep into the pockets of his slacks. Booth turned and looked at him, and Sweets was surprised to see that the agent's eyes were misty. The burly agent cleared his throat briefly and nodded.

"Bourbon," He said in agreement.


	2. The View from Outside

There was a soft hiss and a crystalline click as Booth set his fourth empty tumbler back on the bar, and over his own glassful of amber liquid, Sweets watched the ice swirl around the bottom of the cut glass cup. Booth raised a hand in the direction of the bartender, indicating his interest in having said glass refilled and Sweets raised an eyebrow.

“Hitting it kind of hard, aren’t you Booth?”

“Sweets,” the agent sighed, “I’ve earned the right to my bourbon tonight; and I’ve earned the right to enjoy it without being guilted by a kid who can’t reach the bar without a booster seat. Now… do you want a nipple for that or are you finally going to drink it like a man?”

/

_“Circumstances such as these,” Sweets said, making a broad gesture at the partners sitting across from him – the fair and rational Dr. Temperance Brennan and the surly and powerful Agent Seeley Booth, “tend to stir up a lot of scary feelings.”_

_“I don’t_ have _scary feelings,” Booth dismissed quickly. “Maybe you need a little night-light at night to sleep-“_

_“Agent Booth,” Dr. Sweets interrupted, leaning forward in his leather chair, smiling slightly when Booth mirrored his action. “You’ve been trying to intimidate me since the moment you stepped in here. And you’ve succeeded.”_

/

“I’m pacing myself,” Lance said with a small smile. “The last time I decided I was going to _drink it like a man_ as you put it, I decided it was a totally awesome idea to sing to Daisy through her call-box.”

Booth snorted into his drink and rolled his eyes. After a minute of consideration, Booth leaned back on his barstool and downed the rest of his bourbon, wincing only slightly as it burned a fiery path to his stomach.

“Where are you at with that whole mess?” Booth asked.

“I couldn’t even begin to pretend that I know,” Sweets said. “I guess I’ve got to accept that I have no control over that situation.”

“Over what situation?” Booth demanded. “You either want to be with Daisy or you don’t. You either get with her or you don’t.”

“I think we both know it’s not that simple,” replied Lance, setting down his empty glass and nodding when the bartender asked if he would like another of the same. When it was set in front of him, Sweets glanced at Booth out of the corner of his eye.

“Why did you go back on the engagement, Booth?” he asked quietly and took another sip as Seeley heaved a large sigh.

“You didn’t get around to telling me what actually happened,” Sweets prompted.

“And I don’t intend to.” He cast a stern, sidelong glance at the young psychologist but this in no way deterred him.

“You love her,” Lance observed. “For her to flee the country… she must have been quite upset. It’s not in Dr. Brennan’s nature to run from things. I don’t understand any of this.”

“It doesn’t matter if you understand, Sweets,” Booth said abruptly. “None of this concerns you. Let it go.”

“You’re obviously hurt-“

“Look!” exclaimed the agent, slamming his glass down. “All you need to know, all that you need to understand is that I saw fit to end the engagement. That’s it! I’m not talking about it ANYMORE,” Booth erupted angrily, becoming louder until he yelled the last word.

Heads raised all throughout the bar and Sweets groaned when he saw a large man from the entrance of the bar get up and start walking in their direction. Booth had not noticed, but when the man approached both of them, the agent looked up at him through angry, bloodshot eyes.

“I think it’s time you two left,” the man rumbled, running a hand through his wave of gray hair. Booth stumbled to his feet and squared his shoulders, and Sweets took out his wallet, throwing what was left of his cash on the bar.

“We were just leav-“

“No, we weren’t!” Booth interrupted loudly, staring down at the man with the protuberant belly and the dingy Led Zeppelin t-shirt.  “We have every right-“

“Booth, come on,” Sweets said using almost his entire body weight to push the agent forwards towards the door and past the older man. Sweets continued to shove and push until Booth was outside of the bar, but at that moment, the agent decided to turn around and yell obscenities back at the crowded venue.

“Booth,” Sweets groaned. “Shut _up!_ ” He put one hand on either of Booth’s shoulders and continued to wrestle the agent until he was pressed against the rough brick wall in the alley that ran alongside the bar.  

“What has gotten _into_ you?” Sweets asked in exasperation. “I get it, it’s been a freaking awful day but picking fights with people? Cursing at a bar full of people?” Sweets paced to the other side of the alley, under the flickering orange light of a busted flood lamp, and leaned against the wall, hands on his knees to catch his breath.

“You don’t get it!” Booth growled. “You don’t! You don’t have one _fucking_ clue about what’s going on here. So Daisy and you are having trouble. Big _fucking_ deal,” he said, stepping angrily towards the psychologist. “She _took_ my child. The woman I love _took_ my child and traveled halfway around the world. You and your little squintern friend want to act like the sky is falling because you’re sleeping together and not calling it a relationship. But can you imagine being _forced_ away from the person you love?”

He was so close that Lance could have counted his eyelashes, furious rage rolled off of him, and the bittersweet smell of the bourbon washed over the psychologist in the warmth of Booth’s breath. There was a moment in which the psychologist and the agent locked eyes, wide coffee to angry chocolate, before the wavering light of the flood lamp cut out – and everything changed.

“I can,” Sweets murmured to Booth, grasping the front of his collar and pulling the agent forward. Their lips crashed together and Lance felt the fabric of his own dress shirt catch and pull on the rough stone behind him.

There were several seconds in which Sweets’ full pink lips were pressed to Booth’s and Booth had not moved and would not move. Then, the smallest difference, Booth parted his lips just slightly and darted out a tentative tongue. Sweets groaned quietly, deep in his throat and pressed his advance, sucking soft at the agent’s lower lip.

Suddenly, Booth was a statue coming to life. One hand braced himself against the brick wall, the other grasped at Sweets’ hip and he forced his own pelvis forward, smashing Sweets back into the building. He cocked his head to the side, and using the pressure of his chiseled, stubbled jaw, forced Lance’s mouth open further.

Sweets pulled to the side as he felt something hard, and colder than body temperature, grind into the tender flesh at his other hip bone, as well as the swell of the agent’s budding erection forming against his own. Booth continued his assault at the corner of his mouth.

“Ow,” Sweets groaned. Booth paid no attention and trailed hot, wet kissed down to the psychologist’s throat, earning soft moans. “Ow- ouch! Booth,” he murmured. “Booth, your badge.”

As suddenly as though someone had flipped a switch, the world came grinding back to life. There were cars roaring in the distance, sirens a few streets over, raucous laughter from inside the bar, and a radio buzzing on a fire escape nearby. Even the flood light seemed to whir back into existence, and the alley was once again lit by its feeble orange glow.

Agent Booth stumbled back a few steps, a large calloused hand coming up to cover his mouth in a sort of quiet horror. The lack of his solid heat against Sweets’ chest left the psychologist feeling an almost glacial chill over his flushed skin.

“Booth,” Sweets said softly when his ragged breath had become slower and softer.

“No,” Booth answered immediately. “No.”

“Booth,” the psychologist called again, standing without support from the wall and straightening his tie.

“I said no, Sweets,” the burly agent insisted. He laced his hands behind his head and began pacing the alley, nodding and shaking his head to some sort of internal dialogue raging in his mind.

“I asked her to marry me! We have a baby, for God’s sake.” He paused, before turning away from the sight of the young doctor whose cheeks had flushed with color in his arousal.

“I don’t want this,” he said, almost too low to hear – and yet it still felt like a physical blow to the psychologist standing in the alley, mouth open in preparation to say something comforting, he was sure. “Just go home.”

“I- Okay.” Sweets turned on his heel and made to leave the alley, Booth still reeling behind him.

/

_Sweets had heard the door creak open and the bell ring, but he had tuned it out like much of the other ambiance of the Royal Diner – the creaking of the barstools, the sizzle of lunch on the grill, the chipper chatter of the other patrons. So, when Brennan and Booth sat down on either side of him, he looked up with a wide grin._

_“Hey! This is a surprise,” he greeted them pleasantly._

_“Yeah,” Booth said, looking around the diner swiftly. There was a brief pause before Booth continued without any attempt at preamble._

_“Hey, Sweets, where were you after the explosion?”_

_Lance bit the end of a fry and responded without much thought; he had been where he always was._

_“I was with you.”_

_“No, you were with us when the explosion occurred,” corrected Dr. Brennan earnestly. Booth nodded to Sweets’ other side._

_“I mean after,” Agent Booth clarified. There was another beat of silence, and Sweets felt as if the background noise was dulling to a droning buzz. None of the three looked at one another._

_“Uh, let’s see.” He took a breath, thinking back to his hurried strides away from the explosion. “I ran to call 911.” Sweets glanced over at Booth nervously._

_“Where?” Dr. Brennan asked, a touch of aggression seeping into her question and Sweets gnawed the inside of his cheek compulsively to maintain his composure in the wake of his irritability._

_“In your office, why?”_

_“Then what?” Booth demanded._

_Sweets recognized the reason he felt so uncomfortable; this was an interrogation. His two patients, his two friends had entered this bar with such a task in mind. What were they suggesting that he had done?_

_“Then I went to the door to show the EMTs where to go,” he carefully recounted._

_“You didn’t come in with them.” It was a simple observation, as Brennan was so adept at, but Sweets could not help but notice the accusatory undercurrent. Suddenly, the tone of both the anthropologist and the agent made sense. The explosion. His location. They couldn’t actually think that he had engineered it?_

_Sweets glanced over the bar and struggled to keep his frustration from coloring his next answer._

_“No, I find it’s best to stay out of the way of the professionals in those situations.” He paused for a moment and felt his steady resolve crumble.  “Oh, I’m sorry. I forgot one thing.”_

_“What’s that?”_

_Sweets turned and faced Booth with a small smirk before replying, “I went down to the vault and I stole the silver skeleton because, um,” he licked his lips, “I’m Gormogon’s apprentice.”_

_“That’s a confession,” Booth said solemnly, glancing at Dr. Brennan.  “You know, I can lock him up for 72 hours.”_

_“You’d lock me up for sarcasm?” demanded Sweets in bewilderment. He looked from Brennan, whose beautiful face was a frustrating mask of absolute sobriety – she actually believed this to be a possibility – to Agent Booth, who had had far more experience working alongside the psychologist._

_“I think you should.”_

_Lance stared at Dr. Brennan for only a moment before turning back to Booth, all traces of humor gone from his 23-year-old face._

_“Wait. You guys actually think I’m Gormogon’s apprentice?”_

_“Well, somebody is.” Booth shrugged. “That way, I can lock you up, check out your story, and not worry about you running off to Bolivia.”_

_“This is fierce wretched,” the psychologist said, swallowing around a lump that had formed in his throat._

_“Better safe than sorry,” chirped Dr. Brennan, but Lance declined to look in her direction, as confused and angry as he was._

_“No,” Sweets rejected, taking cover behind the psychology. “You’re projecting Agent Booth. You have a reasonable hostility toward Gormogon but you have no outlet for those feelings, so you’re using me-“_

_“Am I going to have to break out my cuffs?” the agent interrupted as he clapped a hand on the psychologist’s shoulder. Sweets tried to breathe over his seething anger and raised his eyes to meet the eyes of Special Agent Seeley Booth and shrugged his hand off._

_“You know what? Yeah, you are going to need your cuffs because I’m not about to make this easy for you.”_

/

In an uncharacteristic flash of irritation, Sweets whipped around and faced Booth, who was still standing in the half-lit alley with his calloused hands laced behind his head breathing heavily. He glared at the agent’s burly outline, glowing orange around a darkened silhouette; perhaps it was the bourbon, but there was no comprehensible way for Sweets to allow himself to make this easy on Booth either.

“But you heard your reasoning, right?” He called angrily back at the illuminated shadow of the man in the alleyway. Booth’s darkened profile dropped his hands from behind his head but did not turn to acknowledge the psychologist.

“ _You have a child,_ ” Sweets quoted simply. “ _You asked her to marry you._ ” He paused and continued to bore his gaze into the shadows of the alley as the streetlight threatened to flicker back into darkness.

“You didn’t tell me you weren’t gay-“

“I’m not!” Booth hissed back in the darkness.

“You didn’t say you don’t feel that way,“ Sweets continued, as if Booth had not spoken.

“I don’t-“ But Booth’s words stuttered to a halt before he finished the sentiment. His dulcet, angry voice tore on the word _don’t_ and Sweets felt his heart beating a bruising tattoo against the inside of his chest. 

“The way you-“ Lance started but shook his head. “Your… That,” he stumbled on, pointing in the direction of the brick building he had just been pressed against.

“ _That_ did not feel like you _don’t_.” The pink burn from where Booth’s evening stubble had seared across his fair skin ached like his bruised lips like his hips and shoulders. Lance traced the outside of his full mouth briefly with a long finger. When Booth did not respond, Sweets threw his hands up in irritation and did what he did best.

“You know, you have a history of using inappropriate coping mechanisms, too. And this is part of it,” Dr. Sweets said, gestured at the alley and the man standing before him. “So many things are outside of your control. You’re hurt. You’re frustrated. You’re _furious_. And you don’t see a channel to direct any of that down.” Sweets drew a deep shaking breath and steadied the buzzing chaos that the bourbon had lit in his head. He stepped closer to Seeley Booth.

“I’m your channel,” he said softly, declining to acknowledge the word _again_ that surged against his tongue. “Use me.”

Booth finally looked up and Lance thought for a wild moment that he had swelled to the size of the alley itself. He was taller, broader and then he was moving toward the psychologist in swift, strong strides, anger evident in his countenance.

“Use you? _Use_ you?”  Booth shuddered with what appeared to be suppressed rage as he entered the halo of muddled light from the main street.

“This isn’t a gym, Sweets. You’re not a punching bag. I’m not going to come home from work and throw you up against a wall because this is awful. I don’t want _this_! I don’t want _you._ Not in this way. Not like this.”

There was a long moment in which Sweets, perhaps for the first time in his young adult life, was at a complete loss for words. There was no psychology to fall against. There was no forbidden, tumultuous man to press himself against. There was no defense against this; Agent Seeley Booth did not want this attention from his best friend.

“I’ll see you Monday then,” the psychologist responded simply.  He balled his hands in the pockets of his slacks and turned back to the street outside of the bar.


End file.
